Apple and iPhone users continue to play a game of cat-and-mouse regarding ringtones.

Initially, there was no way to add custom ringtones to an iPhone.

Eventually, hackers found a way in the back door. Several alternative methods emerged, each new one easier than the one before—culminating with Ambrosia Software’s iToner, a no-brainer ringtone installer “for the rest of us.”

The ink was hardly dry on iToner’s press release when Apple released iTunes 7.4. This new version added support for Apple’s own .99¢ ringtone option. Unfortunately, whenever you synched your iPhone after installing the update, it had the side effect (intended or otherwise) of erasing ringtones installed by iToner.

Not to worry. It took only about 24 hours before word spread on the Web that you could make your own ringtones for free and, simply by adding a “.m4r” suffix to the music file, the item would appear in the ringtones tab of iTunes. From here, the files would sync to your iPhone the same way as ringtones you purchased from the iTunes Store. The hack worked beautifully. I know. I tried it.

Ironically, people were adding their own custom ringtones, using the Apple supported technology, even before the official Apple-supported tones were put on sale in the iTunes Store!

Within 48 hours of this development, Apple updated iTunes to 7.4.1, whose sole “improvement” is to disable the just-discovered home-grown ringtone hack.

Meanwhile, Ambrosia released an iToner 1.0.1 update. Guess what? It adds compatibility with iTunes 7.4, making it a viable ringtone tool once again.

Not to be outdone, I have already seen reports claiming that you can still get home-grown hacked ringtones to work in iTunes 7.4.1; Check this thread, for example. However, there may be some additional hassles to work around.

Does this mean there is an hack-blocking iTunes 7.4.2 in our immediate future?

Round and round it goes. Where it stops nobody knows.

And, with each iteration, I have had to start over and reinstall all my custom ringtones. For me, I am getting off the merry-go-round for the time being. Better off doing without custom ringtones until the dust finally settles on all of this. I don’t need to waste my time on this minor convenience any more.

I admit it. I have absolutely no hard evidence for what I am about to say. None-the-less, I am almost certain it is true: New iPhone model(s) will be introduced at Macworld Expo in January.

What’s the basis for this prediction? It all comes down to parsing Apple’s (and Steve Job’s) language regarding the just announced price drop for the current iPhone.

Take a look at the Apple press release regarding the price drop. The release is titled “Apple Sets iPhone Price at $399 for this Holiday Season.” It goes on to state that Apple wants to “make iPhone affordable for even more customers this holiday season.”

Notice that the expression “holiday season” is always included in any mention of the price drop. Why? Why not just say, for example, that Apple wants to “make iPhone affordable for even more customers” without the “holiday season” addition?

It happens again in Steve Jobs’ “open letter” to iPhone customers, where he writes that all of us who purchased an iPhone prior to the price drop will get a $100 credit at the Apple Store. In this letter, he states: “iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season.” A few sentences later, he writes: “We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.”

Once again, there is that repeated and unneeded addition of the phrase “this holiday season.” Why?

I believe the answer is that the price will go up again after the holiday season is over. I specifically asked Apple reps about this at the Special Event on Wednesday. They denied there was any plan to raise the price in January. But their wording did not entirely rule the possibility. Just because there is no “announced” plan, for example, doesn’t mean that there is not an unannounced one. In any case, Apple reps at a “hands-on” display of new products are not about to reveal anything about Apple’s future plans that Steve himself had not revealed. So I don’t put much stock in these denials.

However, I seriously doubt that Apple will simply raise the price of the same 8GB model that is on sale now. Raising the price of an existing product is almost never done in this business. If anything, prices go down for existing or even improved technology over time; not the reverse.

So, if as I predict, the price will go up again in January, the justification for the price hike must be that a new model (or models) will be replacing the existing iPhone. Given the current price drop from $599 to $399, I expect that the price will not jump back to $599 again. Instead, my guess is that we will see a new iPhone model priced at $499. This could be simply a 16GB iPhone. Such a move would make sense because, with the 16GB iPod touch selling for $399, it would be awkward to offer a 16GB iPhone for the same price. Or, just as likely, Apple could introduce an “iPhone 2.0” with new features such as built-in GPS.

The only thing that doesn’t quite fit in this picture is this: Even if a new and improved iPhone is coming in January for $499, why not continue to sell the existing iPhone for $399? If that is the plan, all the caveats about “this holiday season” would not be required, as the $399 price would remain in place. So if my theory is correct, this is not going to happen.

Perhaps Apple isn’t quite ready to make $399 the permanent price point for an entry level iPhone. They still believe they can get the sales they want and maintain the higher margin of a $499 price. So they use the introduction of the new model to get rid of the lower price. Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s something else.

Regardless, I remain convinced that the repeated use of the “holiday season” phrase is not just superfluous language on Apple’s part. There is a reason behind it. And now you have my theory as to what that reason is.

Peripherals for iPhone may be a bit slow in coming, but there was one category of peripheral that was available the same day that iPhone was released: iPhone cases. The irony is that this is a peripheral that is not only unnecessary but may actually be a hinderance.

To be fair, I have never liked the idea of using protective cases on anything, even my iPods. It reminds me of putting slipcovers over a beautiful couch. What’s the point of having beautiful material for your couch, if you are going to cover it up and never see it?

Still, I typically use a case with my iPods, despite my reservations, because on balance I want to protect the device, especially the screen, from scratches and other potential damage.

The iPhone, however, is a different story. First, iPhone’s design is so elegant and striking that to cover it up with a case seems even more of a crime than with an iPod. A case also affects (probably negatively) how the iPhone feels when holding it to your ear for a call, something that is not an issue with an iPod.

The most critical factor is that you can’t cover up the iPhone screen with a case anyway. Because iPhone has a touchscreen, you need to be able to have your fingers come in direct contact with the display. A cover would prevent that. Added to that is that Apple did a great job of making the screen scratch-resistant. I have seen demos of trying to scratch the screen by scraping a coin across it; it had no effect. This means that the part of the iPhone you should be most concerned with protecting is the part that a case has no ability (and perhaps no need) to protect.

Making matters worse, a recent report on iPhone Atlas suggests that some cases may actually cause scratches and heat-related problems that would otherwise not occur.

I might consider something like Power Support Crystal Film Set for iPhone; it covers the screen, allows the touchscreen to still work and appears to be almost imperceptible. Even here though, it seems possible that the film might wind up getting “scratched” in a way that the glass itself would not, defeating the film’s purpose.

Bottom line: Get the iPhone; skip the case.

Third-party applications for iPhone have started to arrive. I have sampled a few of them and have already found three keepers. Two I am enthusiastic about; the third less so.

Scenario Poker. I had a version of Texas Hold’em on my now defunct old mobile phone. I similarly downloaded the Texas Hold ’em game for the iPod. I enjoyed playing both versions and expected that games on iPhone would be one of the things I would surely miss, at least until Apple got around to allowing software downloads to the device. I was wrong. I am already playing poker on my iPhone and it is almost perfect. I am using a Web-based application from Scenario software called Scenario Poker. If you have ever tried their Dashboard widget version of Texas Hold ’em, you will find that the iPhone version is virtually identical. Which is to say, it is a very good implementation. There are even two variations of the game for iPhone, one for Portrait mode and one for Landscape mode.

Note: if you try to load the above link on your Mac, rather than on your iPhone, you will get a message that says: “You should browse to this page directly from Safari on iPhone. Scenario Poker for iPhone is a web-based application, so there is nothing to install. Safari on iPhone will manage Scenario Poker’s resources automatically in its cache and store your preferences in cookies.”

The downsides of the implementation (compared to what a “true” game on iPhone would be like) are very few. The main one is that, to access the game, you have to load Safari and go to the game’s Web page. There is no way to directly click to load the game from the Home screen. You can make access easier by bookmarking the page or even saving it as an open page via iPhone’s option to have more than one page open at a time. But it is still not ideal and requires an Internet connection to do so. However, there is a pleasant surprise here. Because the game’s resources are stored in the cache, you don’t need an active Internet connection to actually play the game after it has loaded. To test this out yourself, load and start playing the game. Now go to iPhone’s Settings (leaving the game as the active window in Safari) and turn on Airplane mode (which turns off both the Edge network and Wi-Fi access). Now return to Safari. You will still be able to continue playing the game (icons of the players may go blank, but I had no other difficulties).

Bottom line: iPhone is only two weeks old and my Texas Hold ’em dilemma is already solved. Cool!

Movies.app. While this second Web-based application is optimized for iPhone, it is also fully functional from Safari on your Mac. Movies.app tells you what movies are playing in the theaters located within your zipcode as well as their showtimes. It has worked perfectly for me so far. Happily, it extends iPhone features such as Maps and Weather to provide useful info that I can access from wherever I happen to be.

iPhoneDrive. This is not exactly iPhone software, as it does not run on your iPhone. Rather, iPhoneDrive is shareware for your Mac that interacts with iPhone to fill in one of the missing gaps in iPhone’s features. With iPhoneDrive you can copy files of your choice to and from an iPhone. Using just iPhone’s built-in software, there is no way to do this, other than what is permitted via iTunes. The iPhone does not show up in the Finder nor in Disk Utility.

To be honest, the iPhoneDrive software has limited value in what it can do. First, you cannot access the copied files from iPhone. For example, if you copy a Word document to iPhone, you cannot open it from the phone. All you can do is store it on iPhone and later copy it back to a Mac. iPhoneDrive’s main value therefore is as a quasi-backup device or to transfer documents for one Mac to another. The transfer option gets to the second limitation: to retrieve a file on a second Mac, it too must have iPhoneDrive installed, requiring another download and shareware purchase. Third, I suspect (although I am not certain) that transferred files are not tracked by iPhone’s backup mechanism. This means that if you ever had to erase and restore your iPhone, all the files transferred to iPhone would be lost.

At some point, I begin to think that it might be preferable to simply get a 1 GB flash drive and carry that around for when you want to transfer files. Still, if you can find value from iPhoneDrive despite its limitations, it does provide the first user-friendly way to copy virtually any data to iPhone. That alone makes it worth a mention.